The present invention relates generally to the field of currency handling systems and, more particularly, to a multi-pocket currency handling system for discriminating, authenticating, and/or counting currency bills.
A variety of techniques and apparatuses have been used to satisfy the requirements of automated currency handling machines. As businesses and banks grow, these businesses are experiencing a greater volume of paper currency. These businesses are continually requiring not only that their currency be processed more quickly but, also, processed with more options in a less expensive manner. At the upper end of sophistication in this area of technology are machines that are capable of rapidly identifying, discriminating, and counting multiple currency denominations and then delivering the sorted currency bills into a multitude of output compartments. Many of these high end machines are extremely large and expensive such that they are commonly found only in large institutions. These machines are not readily available to businesses which have monetary and space budgets, but still have the need to process large volumes of currency. Other high end currency handling machines require their own climate controlled environment which may place even greater strains on businesses having monetary and space budgets.
Currency handling machines typically employ magnetic sensing or optical sensing for denominating and authenticating currency bills. The results of these processes determines to which output compartment a particular bill is delivered to in a currency handling device having multiple output receptacles. For example, ten dollar denominations may be delivered to one output compartment and twenty dollar denominations to another, while bills which fail the authentication test are delivered to a third output compartment. Unfortunately, many prior art devices only have one output compartment which can be appropriately called a reject pocket. Accordingly, in those cases, the reject pocket may have to accommodate those bills which fail a denomination test or authentication test. As a result, different types of xe2x80x9crejectxe2x80x9d bills are stacked upon one another in the same output compartment leaving the operator unknowing as to which of those bills failed which tests.
During the lifetime of prior art currency handling devices it is likely that individual key components of the devices, including components specific to the output receptacles, will degrade and eventually fail. The failure of an individual components specific to an output receptacle can render that output receptacle inoperable. The inoperability of one of the output receptacles of prior art currency handling devices can render the entire device inoperable regardless of whether the remaining output receptacles are otherwise properly functioning. Component failures resulting in the inoperability of the entire device can have a devastating effect on the cash handling operations of users of these devices. The inventors of the present invention have found that currency handling devices play a vital role in the overall operation of a cash vault, including cash vaults at bank or casinos. The inventors estimate that over 90% (ninety percent) of the cash handled within a cash vault is processed by a currency handling device. Therefore, the failure of a currency handling device can have a disastrous effect on the operation of a cash vault or other operations relying on the performance of the currency handling device.
A currency handling device for rapidly processing a plurality of currency bills comprises an input receptacle adapted to receive the currency bills to be processed, a plurality of output receptacles adapted to receive the bills after the bills have been processed, a transport mechanism adapted to transport the bills, one at a time, along a transport path from the input receptacle to the plurality of output receptacles, an evaluating unit that is adapted to determine information concerning the bills, and a controller. The evaluation unit includes at least one sensor positioned along the transport path between the input receptacle and the plurality of output receptacles. The controller is adapted to operate the currency handling device according to a mode of operation wherein the mode of operation designates the output receptacle to which each of the bills are transported based on the determined information concerning the bill. The controller is adapted to disable at least one of the plurality of output receptacles. The controller is adapted to cause the transport mechanism to direct bills directed to the disabled one of the plurality of output receptacles pursuant to the mode of operation to an alternative output receptacle.
The above summary of the present invention is not intended to represent each embodiment, or every aspect, of the present invention. Additional features and benefits of the present invention will become apparent from the detail description, figures, and claim set forth below.